I heard two interesting points about the Iraqi Bush War last night on the Diane Rhem show (see April 28, 2007): - Rep. Dick Snyder (D-Arkansas): Advocates on both sides want to talk about anything but the language of the bill, which does not make any requirement that any troops come out of Iraq, but essentially retasks them. "There is no limit in time or number ... of troops." This makes sense from the Bush standpoint, but the Democrats ...? Start at about 33:30 in the audio playback. It's an interesting point. - At 38 minutes in, Diane corrects her earlier quote of Harry Reid: "The full quotation was, 'And as long as we follow the president's path in Iraq, the war is lost. But there is still a chance to change course, and we must change course.'" Perhaps we at Sciforums should take note. Just because everyone else is losing their heads about it doesn't mean we must as well. Even though I hadn't even bothered to find out what Reid actually said (it doesn't make that much difference to me), I found it surprising that we could be so long past his comments before anyone actually makes this point. And, for those who would skip the audio, it's even more interesting that it was a listener who apparently called in the point. For all the debate and nastiness flying about the war rhetoric, why aren't these two important points a little more prominent? Do they change anything?
And you'll note that neither he, nor anyone else, is willing to take the bull by the horns and tell us WHAT is the change in course that he suggests? Why do you suppose that is? Ahh, just another politician mouthing words that mean little or nothing? It seems that only President Bush and the military generals and the soldiers and Marines assigned to the task are willing to actually act and do something ....instead of just talk and complain. Baron Max
"WHAT is the change in course that he suggests? The application of benchmarks justifying further perpetuation of the ever-more-bitter occupation of Iraq. "Why do you suppose that is?" Because throwing way ever more lives in the absence of an exit strategy is against the clearly-expressed will of the American people. WWII had specific goals, and an exit strategy. This war does not. Every election from here forward will bear this reality out. "...only President Bush and the military generals and the soldiers and Marines assigned to the task are willing to actually act and do something ....instead of just talk and complain." That is a lie. Sometimes talking and complaining are also a military duty, especially for those members of senior military leadership who understand Clausewitz: Without first securing the support of the people, wars are doomed to failure. Even if US armed forces carried out massive and indescriminate esclation of the war, the outcome (resentment of the intervention on all sides) would be unchanged. Very similarly to the Vietnam debacle, there is no military solution to what we have wrought in Iraq. It's time to go home, because our continuing occupying presence in Iraq is becoming increasingly counterproductive to American strategic interests.
I think retasking the mission to suit our eventual exit is an excellent change of course. It's not going to "win" the war, but it's certainly a change of course and, in its very demand, progressive. At this point, we've got nothing to lose except maybe a little share price from body bag manufacturers. (Just tell me the flags on the coffins aren't made in China. Or Bangladesh. Or anywhere other than the United States.)
Nice try on the Reid quote. Here is the actual quote: ‘‘I believe myself that the secretary of state, secretary of defense, and - you have to make your own decisions as to what the president knows - [know] this war is lost and the surge is not accomplishing anything as indicated by the extreme violence in Iraq yesterday,” said Reid. -CommonDreams.org The quote the radio host is using is the retraction quote. You know the one where he is trying to seem as if he did not say what he actually said. In short, your quote is not the original one.
If there is no military solution for we "what we have wrought in Iraq" then I hope those who began the war and those who oppose it are ready to live with the fallout, which will be similar to what happened when we upped stakes and left Vietnam: IE, there will be ethnic cleansing and murders on a near-genocidal scale...
I'm suspecting that those defined by the necessity to withdraw due to premature tendencies are psychologically incapable of understanding what it really takes to truly satisfy those they believe they are actually screwing. Knotted panties is a dead giveaway.
That did not happen in Vietnam. It may happen in Iraq - that is, the ethnic cleansing and murders may become even worse than they are now or than they are becoming now ( they are becoming worse now, so merely having them become somewhat worse in the future would not be evidence of a new trend). But the opposite may also happen. Lots of outside observers seem to think the US military presence in Iraq is making things worse now, and things would improve without it. All these people may be correct - their track record is not bad, certainly better than W&Co's.
iceaura Afraid your wrong just do a little Google search on Cambodia, Laos, South Vietnam, reeducation camps, Humong, the killing fields, http://www.americanthinker.com/2007/03/the_current_meaning_of_vietnam.html The Congressional vote in 1975 signaled the North Vietnamese government that it was finally safe to launch an overwhelming military attack on the young democratic government of South Vietnam. What ensued in Vietnam was cataclysmic. Close to one million people in Vietnam were executed in "re-education camps" instituted by the now unified Communist government. These killings did not go unnoticed in Vietnam and elsewhere. The unified Communist government sought to kill anyone deemed a traitor by their cooperation with the American power that previously sustained the democratic government of South Vietnam Next door in Cambodia, a man by the name of Pol Pot capitalized on the vacuum of America's abrupt military withdrawal and precipitous rejection of funding for democratic governance. Pol Pot instituted one of the most vicious and swift genocides of the modern era. Killing as many as 3 million people, Cambodia instituted one of the most bizarre spectacles of human hatred, wherein even children were forced to perform the execution of their own parents under the supervision of the Khmer Rouge state. Though American and international media provided front row seats to the carnage, the outcry for international action was easily subdued by political movements for "peace" in Southeast Asia and an end to "American imperialism." The American left helped seal the deal on yet another dark chapter of brother abandoning brother into the outrageous public celebrations of human hatred immortalized by the Khmer Rouge ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Can you say Yugoslavia, Bosnia, Herzegovina ,Croatia ? ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- That was the same rhetoric that was use back in the days of Vietnam, and it cost millions their lives. Can you say Yugoslavia, Bosnia, Herzegovina ,Croatia, Vietnam ?
Thank you for the correction. Of course, as I noted before, it doesn't matter to me very much either way. That people are arguing over the Reid statement is rather quite stupid to begin with. On a recent Real Time with Bill Maher, the point arose that "the war is lost, but it's not the troops fault." And I understood the point they were making: that this apparently needs to be said, and repeatedly. But even if we welcome home our troops with parades and open arms, why do we have to pretend they won? They never stood a chance because the people who sent them never intended that they should actually win. The fact that the war is lost does not reflect on the rank and file of our armed services. That Harry Reid must retract and modify himself in order to satisfy those who would lie is rather quite sickening. When did you flip, Mr. G? I must say I'm impressed that, for once, you're appropriately indicting the Bush crowd. After all, you couldn't be referring to the Democrats, since they aren't actually withdrawing. As Rep. Snyder advised Diane Rehm: troop levels, under the funding bill, can actually increase. So I can't figure out why the GOP is running around having fits here and there about something that isn't happening. What's your theory on premature withdrawal according to psychosis?
tiassa Please explain to us what will happen in the Democratic plan? Will the funds for the Troops inIraq be cut?, Will the troops be pulled out of Iraq? Will there be money for the troops to stay in Iraq until the job is done? Will there be money for equipment for supplies needed for the troops in Iraq?, like up armored humv's?, body armor? weapons?, bullets? food? medical supplies?Please explain how under the defense budget passed by the Democrats that the troops won't be pulled out of Iraq?
I recommend listening to Rep. Snyder's input, linked in the topic post. The point is to retask the troops: frontline combat is no longer our role. Strategic, tactical, and logistical support, protecting contract workers, &c. Supporting the thousands of non-military American and Coalition personnel in Iraq will require a hefty force. As Rep. Snyder put it, our troops shouldn't be the ones kicking down doors anymore. Indeed, troop numbers in Iraq can, under the Democratic funding bill, increase. Get bigger. Augment. Grow. Inflate. How is that withdrawal?
Tiassa: "Strategic, tactical, and logistical support, protecting contract workers, &c. Supporting the thousands of non-military American and Coalition personnel in Iraq... Indeed, troop numbers in Iraq can, under the Democratic funding bill, increase. Get bigger. Augment. Grow. Inflate." Not without continuing to be the targets and writhing victims of the increasing numbers of Iraqis who deeply resent any American presence. It's over: There's no keeping a quaint retro-colonial facade on this clusterfuck- That age is a long time gone, and ain't coming back again. Iraqis would not tolerate our troops in their streets, even if they all were to become mailmen. Nor will they tolerate American mercenaries. Nor will they tolerate American corporations. To expect tolerance of Americans from them requires an extreme lack of empathy for what they've been through at our hands.
"frontline" -LOL. I guess you mean: "take the US forces to desert bases outside the cities." OK, but if the latest reason offer by GWB for why the troops are there is: "So we don't have to fight the terroists in the USA" etc. Then that too is either: (1) Just another silly smoke screen covering for the real reason keeping troops there (oil), OR (2) Really stupid / illogical. - The terrorist can more easily kill Americans in these near by bases than in the US. IMHO, both (1) and (2) apply.
Not to mention that there are other seething hotbeds of anti-American intrigue (including terrorist preparations) in places like Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. The notion that Iraq is presently like an all-consolidating terrorist ant-trap is ludicrous: Iraq today is instead a global incitement for terrorism. Al-Qaeda and their imitators expressly sought to draw the USA into a quagmire, just as the Soviets were drawn into in Afghanistan. I am worried that once the American withdrawal finally comes, another spectacular attempt to provoke American recklessess will occur. If it does, I hope that we've learned enough by then not to take the bait, but instead focus on going directly at the provocatuers, surgically and with minimal disruption of our economic underpinnings and global prestige/clout.
Congress, once having authorized war, has only the constitutional power to fund or cease funding a war. It has no constitutional power to conduct war. Re-tasking is not within the constitutional purview of Congress. Acting like it is should be more intellectually embarrassing than it seems to be in certain quarters.
My comment was about Vietnam. Cambodia is not Vietnam. Laos is not Vietnam. That is not quibbling: our military presence in those countries was not like the presence in Vietnam - or Iraq - and the roots of the horror shows (especially Cambodia's) not reducible to "the US was keeping order, then it left". The US was not keeping order in Laos or Cambodia (Pol Pot was no enemy of the US) and the war in Laos or Cambodia was not at all the same as Vietnam. The Hmong were not two million people, and were not exterminated. We took many as refugees, and the genocide against them is going on even now - under the auspices of the World Bank and various other right-wing organizations, btw. In the first place, they were our allies, they continued to fight, and the victors took revenge. In the second, our "allies" in Iraq are not vulnerable in that fashion. Baloney. The government of South Vietnam was not democratic, young or otherwise. The North was outnumbered and outgunned by the South - how did they manage to be so "overwhelming"? And the comparison is not with peace and quiet, but with the conditions after the US withdrawal compared with conditions before - the death rate in South Vietnam did not rise much, if at all, after US withdrawal. Whatever cataclysms Vietnam suffered, they did not begin with US withdrawal - they just didn't completely stop. And what do you see in Iraq that looks like the NVA? Like Pol Pot? Iraq is fragmented, not demonically organized. Somalia would make a better bogey,or Yugoslavia. The point is not that things in Iraq cannot fall apart. The point is that things are getting steadily worse under US occupation, and can fall apart whether the US stays or not. And there isn't anything the US can do about that, except quit adding to the disaster. The biggest risk of genocide in Iraq is the vulnerability of the Sunni mnority in Baghdad. The US is not only not helping these Sunni defend themselves, but actively increasing their vulnerability - helping Shia death squads, building walls around Sunni ghettos, etc. Our actions in Iraq are not reducing the chances of serious atrocity, and the longer we stay the worse they are.
I wonder how happy everyone will be about "retasking" or "redeploying" or other forms of white flag waving will be when civil war takes hold of Iraq, oil goes up to about $100 a barrel, gasoline goes over 5 bucks a gallon, the house sector collapses due to resulting foreclosures, and our -1.7 savings average catches up to our economy 1920's style.......I know it's so very unpopular to speak in raw economic, and power concepts as opposed to hyperbole like "violence never solved anything" (except perhaps for thr citizens of Troy, the Nazi's, Imperial Japan, the Revolutionary war, the Confederacy, and American slavery.....well anyway I'm digressing) but I think all of u who think it's just insane to stay, arn't really taking a close look at what chips are currently on the table, if so ya might decide to wait to fold just a bit longer. Because YOU will be paying that tab out, and so will your kids. (those of you who will reproduce anyway)
Sgt. Fury, the perpetual occupation of Iraq cannot ensure the safety of the US economy from the fears you are expressing. Our economy is not dependent on Iraq, although the obsession has been consistently damaging our interests. We'll do better to move on- there's nothing that the USA can take from Iraq from here forward, but more casualties and resentment.
No one denied your comments were about Vietnam, Iceaura. Go back and read Buffalo's post again. He speaks correctly when points out the catastrophic deaths in South Vietnam after the American pull out. You seem to want to totally wash our national hands of this outcome or minimize its importance, just as you want to ignore the instablility the departure of a major Western power created in Southeast Asia and the chaos and death it generated. But why should anyone take your post seriously when you crow about the World Bank and genocide in the same sentence? Your bias is obvious and apparent for all to see: The West is corrupt, evil and imperialistic and goes out of its way to destroy native populations. However, it's OK when the natives wipe each other out when what little stablility the West provided is taken away...
